Trump's New Appointees Grant Far-right Israel Its Greatest Freedom Yet
Editorial |
Trump's New Appointees Grant Far-right Israel Its Greatest Freedom Yet
The series of appointments announced by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump should worry everyone who cares about Israel's future. Support for the settlements and the annexation of the territories, together with their inhabitants, is not a pro-Israel position.
From the very start, the settlement enterprise threatened to destroy the state. Now, with a pro-settler American administration that supports annexing the territories and their millions of inhabitants, the countdown to the end of Israel as a democratic state will be accelerated.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said that Trump's election victory is an opportunity. "2025 will be the year of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria," he stated. Indeed, Trump's appointments look like the fulfillment of the great dream of the minister of the territories: Rep. Michael Waltz will serve as his national security adviser; Sen. Marco Rubio will be Secretary of State; Rep. Elise Stefanik has been tapped as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations; former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a pro-annexation evangelical Christian, will be the ambassador to Israel; Trump nominated the Fox News host Pete Hegseth, whose positions are close to those of Huckabee and who is known for his close ties to right-wing figures in Israel, to serve as his defense secretary.
When it is impossible to distinguish between Smotrich and the U.S. ambassador, it's dangerous for Israel. "There is no such thing as a West Bank. It's Judea and Samaria. There's no such thing as a settlement. They're communities, they're neighborhoods, they're cities. There's no such thing as an occupation," Huckabee said in 2017.
For Israelis who aspire to live in a country that does not rule over another nation and does not have an apartheid regime, the appointment of someone like Huckabee is ominous.
Smotrich and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, along with his right-wing government, did not wait for Trump to continue annexing the territories piecemeal and preparing the ground for occupation and settlement in Gaza as well. The land theft and displacement of the Palestinians never even paused. The "fully right-wing" government is deliberately destroying the Palestinian economy to cause its collapse, in accordance with Smotrich's vision and with Netanyahu's encouragement, on the way to annexation.
The new law prohibiting the UNRWA refugee agency from operating in Israel is also aimed toward annexation. And for a year now, IDF bulldozers have been preparing the ground in Gaza for the military's protracted stay and the absorption of large numbers of settlers.
Annexation means absorbing more than 5 million Palestinians into the extended Israel, becoming a "fully apartheid" state, officially and openly, relinquishing membership in the family of democratic states and facing heightened risks to national security.
The joy on the right at the nominations of annexation supporters to the top positions in the administration shows that the "revival," according to Netanyahu, is population transfer in Gaza and an apartheid state in the West Bank.
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